Question of the Day

Should President Trump end 'chain migration?'

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A judge has ruled that a man convicted of killing four people in Omaha last summer should undergo a psychiatric evaluation in prison, rather than being transported to a state psychiatric hospital for the exam.

Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon issued the ruling Friday after prosecutors argued that moving Nikko Jenkins, 27, from the Lincoln prison where he’s being held to a psychiatric hospital would pose a security risk, The Omaha World-Herald reported (https://bit.ly/1uA3Ga5 ) Saturday.

In court documents, Lincoln Regional Center CEO Bill Gibson said the psychiatric hospital could not ensure the safety of Jenkins, staff or other patients if he were admitted for a mental health evaluation.

“It would be very difficult to maintain safety for him, the other patients and staff given our understanding of the degree of violence he has presented while in correctional facilities,” Gibson said in a June 3 affidavit.

A defense psychiatrist recently testified that Jenkins’ mental state has deteriorated since he was convicted in April of four counts of first-degree murder. Authorities say Jenkins recently used a razor blade to cut his lips and carve above his eyebrows, then smeared blood in his cell at the Lincoln Correctional Center.

Defense psychiatrist Bruce Gutnik said he has evaluated Jenkins and found that Jenkins is not competent to face a death penalty hearing scheduled for Aug. 11.

The judge set a July 2 hearing on Jenkins’ competency to face the August death penalty hearing.

Jenkins pleaded no contest in April and was convicted in the shooting deaths of Juan Uribe-Pena, Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, Curtis Bradford and Andrea Kruger over a 10-day period after his release from prison last July. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.

Prosecutors say he planned the killings to cover up robberies of the victims or to keep them from identifying him. Jenkins insists that he doesn’t remember the killings, but says an Egyptian god named Ahpophis ordered him in a foreign language to kill the four as human sacrifices.